(Business in Cameroon) - The subsidiary in Cameroon of the South African telecoms group MTN International has done a rather good job in identifying mobile subscribers, which led to the deactivation of hundreds of thousands of non-identified chips from the second quarter of 2016. Indeed, in spite of this operation required by the government, which resulted in the loss of many subscribers for telephone operators, MTN Cameroon rather shows an increase in its subscriber base of 7.9% to 9.9 million subscribers.

In its financial report at year end 2016, the group MTN explains this performance of its subsidiary in Cameroon by the aggressiveness of its subscriber identification campaign, and the rapid reduction in the churn rate after the chip deactivation stage. Incidentally, in spite of “an improvement in its vitality towards the fourth quarter 2016”, reveals the Group's report, MTN Cameroon closed the year ending on 31 December 2016 with a decrease of 6.7% in its sales revenues. Partly due “to a fall in revenues of outgoing calls, affected in turn by a decrease in the actual rate as well as free minutes used in relation with the customer registration process”.

Data revenue of the mobile market leader in Cameroon, continued to progress last year. According to the Group's report, it experienced a 25.9% increase and thus represents 19% of the operator's total sales revenues. This growth in data revenues, we learn, is the result “of a surge in sales of specific data packages”; expansion in the 3G and LTE networks, notably with rolling out the 3G in 463 sites and LTE in 267 sites in 2016; and the rise in digital revenues (mainly MTN Play and MTN Zik offers), which have contributed 21% to data revenues.

Brice R. Mbodiam